


None Can Excel

by NoirSongbird



Series: Our Kingdom Awaits [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Introspection, M/M, Reaper-centric, honestly basically just Reaper being a mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-08-09 08:35:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7794874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoirSongbird/pseuds/NoirSongbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabriel Reyes failed Overwatch. Reaper intends to clean up his mistakes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	None Can Excel

**Author's Note:**

> A few rambly things:
> 
> -Title is from "O Death"/"Conversations With Death", an American folk song that is very, very Reaper.  
> -Song was written basically entirely with "The World Ender" by Lord Huron on repeat, because that is my Reaper song for this 'verse.  
> -In the same 'verse as, but occurs long before, [Casual Magic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7701484)

The first thing Reaper remembered was darkness - a tight, confining space, where he could barely breathe.

(That was not entirely fair. He remembered a whole other lifetime, where he was Gabriel Reyes, almost Strike Commander of Overwatch and actual Commander of Blackwatch, when he had friends and subordinates and something that actually approximated a  _ family.  _ Reaper had none of those things, and Gabriel Reyes was dead.)

He had realized - when he wraithed for the first time, escaping in a desperate panic, without really knowing what he was doing - that he had woken up in his own coffin, under a headstone in Arlington Cemetery that read  _ Gabriel Reyes.  _

That was not the worst thing.

The worst thing was that the grave next to his read  _ John Morrison. _

His own death, he could handle. He’d had enough time, bleeding out in the rubble of Watchpoint: Zurich, to come to terms with that. But he had bled out curled around Jack Morrison, praying desperately that since there was no way in hell he was making it out, at least Jack lived. Gabriel would have liked to go out saving Jack’s life, if he had to go out. 

Apparently he couldn’t even manage that. Couldn’t see the infection festering in Blackwatch until it was too late, couldn’t stop them from trying to kill Jack, couldn’t even  _ save  _ Jack when he was  _ right there. _

Everything that had mattered to him, gone in one massive explosion. 

A whole lot of Gabriel Reyes stayed buried in that grave at Arlington. Some of him might have gotten up, kept walking, become the mercenary known as “Reaper,” but most of him was still there, in the ground next to Jack Morrison.

He followed the reports on Overwatch after - how could he not? They weren’t Jack, but they were still the closest thing he had left to a family - and watching it fall apart left him even angrier, even more bitter. The worst part was watching how many people suspected he had done it, watching the narrative craft itself - bitter, angry, violent, volatile Blackwatch Commander Gabriel Reyes, with his deep, vicious grudge against golden boy Strike Commander Jack Morrison, and of course Reyes had turned on him and now they were both dead.

He wanted, sometimes, to drag himself out of the grave and into the spotlight just to refute all that bullshit. Yeah, he’d been angry when Jack was promoted. Yeah, they’d had a falling out. Things hadn’t been the same between them for a long time, but there was still no force in the universe that could have compelled Gabriel to want to do harm to Jack, never mind  _ murder him in cold blood and take down a Watchpoint with them. _

He wanted to, so bad it hurt, sometimes - to let them all know he was still alive, that whatever Angela had done (because it had to be Angela, only Doctor Angela Ziegler could have put him back together after the injuries he’d sustained) had worked - sort of - but he  _ couldn’t.  _ Gabriel Reyes had to stay dead. Gabriel Reyes could even stand to be the villain in Overwatch’s history, because it gave Reaper the freedom to do the last thing keeping him going.

The infection in Blackwatch had spread, because he had not rooted it out, and it had pulled all of Overwatch down with it. McCree had warned him, had tried to get it through his head that something was  _ wrong,  _ but he’d been too goddamn  _ stupid  _ to listen. Too sure that his people were as loyal as they presented themselves. Not even McCree practically throwing his Blackwatch credentials in Gabriel’s face and giving him the verbal middle finger on the way out had been enough to get him to see. He’d assumed McCree was being hotheaded, that the good kid - the cowboy who still believed in justice - was rearing his head and didn’t like how Blackwatch operated. 

It had taken finding a collection of schematics for bombing the Zurich headquarters - a bombing clearly targeting Jack - to shake him out of his delusions. By then, it was far, far too late. 

He was the one who had let it get out of hand. Therefore, he was entirely responsible for  _ correcting  _ his error.

The conspiracy had to be vast - he should have suspected, really, when Talon was able to scoop up Amélie Lacroix and send her back just in time to have her murder Gérard in his sleep.

(Another glaring stupidity, in the 20/20 vision of hindsight: imagining that Amélie could come back from being held by Talon for weeks and still be herself. They’d all wanted so badly to believe it, Gérard and Lena especially, and it had cost them. Really, they’d been lucky Lena had been away when Amélie’s programming activated, so they had only lost one agent, instead of two.)

He had a few names, to start. Not many, but a few. The ones he had traced that set of plans back to, in those frantic hours at Watchpoint: Zurich while he tried to ferret out as much of the conspiracy as he could, so when he went to Jack insisting they had to  _ leave  _ he looked at least  _ somewhat  _ credible.

(Jack hadn’t listened.)

His list started small, but those first few conspirators were  _ so very eager  _ to talk with the risen visage of their former Commander looming over them and reminding them obliquely of all the horrible things they had seen him do in the name of getting information and  _ what did they imagine he might stoop to for revenge.  _

He killed them all anyway, sucked out their -- souls, or life force, or whatever it was - and kept on going, adding more and more names to his list as he went.

It came back to Talon, because of course it fucking did. Talon had sunk their claws deep into his organization.

_ He  _ would sink  _ his  _ into  _ them.  _

A fitting revenge, he thought. Tear Talon apart from the inside the way they had torn Overwatch apart. In the meantime, he would have access to some of their records, enough to further his quest.

Five years, he worked, twisting himself up in their operations, making sure he became their absolute favorite go-to mercenary. All the while he made himself a reputation on terror and whispers, the mercenary in black, masked with a skull, who left his victims blown apart by massive shotguns and drained to husks.

Then came the goddamn Watchpoint: Gibraltar job.

Gibraltar had always been Winston’s home base - if Reaper knew anything about Winston, and he could fairly reliably say he did, there was no way the doctor had given the place up. Reaper could even sort of sympathize, because he was fairly certain it was the only home Winston had ever known after escaping from that lab on the Moon. Reaper wasn’t eager to go after him - if there was one agent he could guarantee was  _ not  _ involved in the destruction of Watchpoint: Zurich, it was  _ Winston.  _ He’d seen the news coverage after, the funerals - because of course he had watched Jack’s funeral (over and over and over until he had all of the eulogies memorized and he  _ hated  _ some of them because they were from people who knew  _ Strike-Commander Morrison  _ and not  _ Jack  _ and people who would go on to pass the PETRAS Act and tear down everything Overwatch had built) and his own (once, but once was enough, and he almost hadn’t finished because he’d been so fucking  _ shocked  _ to see McCree standing there and giving a eulogy that actually sounded heartfelt) - and Winston had been at both, barely holding it together. 

Never mind that Winston didn’t have a deceptive bone in his body, really.

He had almost declined, because he found the concept so distasteful, until he heard exactly what the objective  _ was. _

Athena’s database. The names and locations of every still-living Overwatch agent.

Gabriel Reyes had failed Overwatch once. He was not going to fail a second time, not when so many of the former agents were living in retirement. He hated to imagine Talon coming for Lena, or Angela, or McCree, or Genji, even if all of them could handle themselves. So he would have to go, and ensure, somehow, that they failed.

He’d figure out exactly  _ how  _ later. 

Reaper could have given Talon plenty of intelligence on Athena’s inner workings, how to confuse her, where her sensors were placed and how they might evade detection - but quite frankly, Talon had no idea Reaper had that sort of information and they had absolutely no  _ need  _ to know.

Besides, if you asked him, it was  _ blindingly hilarious  _ to watch the first squad get torn apart by a gorilla. He wanted a picture of the first poor fucker, so he could frame it.

He took advantage of the second squad actually being not garbage to pretend to be filling the mission objectives. He was sure Athena would be able to stop whatever intrusion software was on it - she’d been an incredibly advanced AI when he was with Overwatch, and he doubted Winston had stopped improving her in the years since the PETRAS Act if he was still living at a Watchpoint.

(All the personal effects suggested he was. Reaper tried not to be swept under by a tide of nostalgia - and he lost the battle seeing the picture of the day Winston got his degree, a party he’d agreed to attend with much exaggerated eye-rolling and huffing, but -- well, it wasn’t as if he was going to  _ miss it. _

He almost considered stealing the picture, but no - he was doing enough to disturb Winston’s home. Didn’t need to do something that would undeniably make him extra suspicious.)

There was a crash behind him, and he groaned.

Great, joy, that would be the sound of squad two getting predictably wrecked, because of course Athena announcing that he was after the agent database (she called him “Reaper,” she probably had no idea it was Reyes under the mask) was enough to make Winston furious.

So, fine, he would have to pretend to do his damn job for just a little while longer. If, against all odds, the extraction succeeded…

He’d take the list for himself. Talon absolutely could not have it.

Aim shots at the more heavily armored parts of Winston’s body, and then shoot down the capsule hanging above him -- enough to momentarily disable, and to look very good for whoever Talon had observing.

He discarded the empty shotguns, reaching into his jacket and coalescing more out of whatever shadowy material he was made of now.

“Winston!” Athena’s deeply distressed tones echoed over the PA system. “He’s going to have all agents’ locations!”

(Another reminder that they had no idea who he was.)

He needed Winston  _ angry  _ again - a convincing out for Talon, a way for the mission to fail that wouldn’t look agonizingly suspicious.

So Reaper aimed where he knew it hurt.

“I’ll be sure to give them your regards,  _ monkey.” _ He growled.

If there was one thing Winston hated, it was  _ that. _

(Once upon a time, “mono” had been a playful nickname, receiving at worst an eyeroll and a huff.)

“I’m not a monkey,” Winston growled, smacking a hand against some small, cast-aside device and then sliding it at Reaper. It blinked its failure bright red, and Reaper couldn’t help but laugh, just a little, because good fucking  _ lord  _ what was Winston screwing around with now. “I’m a  _ scientist.” _

There it was.

The little device exploded with enough concussive force to send Reaper flying, and he groaned as he started to push himself up and --

Ah, shit, there was Winston’s Tesla cannon, this was going to hurt.

It hurt. A lot.

It took him a long, dizzying moment to even scrape together consciousness after being blasted apart, and it was just in time to hear Lena’s voice chirping from the communicator system in Winston’s office.

Well.

That was interesting.

When Reaper gave his report to Talon, he  _ conveniently  _ left that information out.

Let them find out Overwatch might be coming back together when one of  _ their  _ people took a Tesla cannon to the face, honestly.

Until then, Reaper would make sure none of the old poison could seep into a new incarnation of Overwatch. 

He was Death. And Death was  _ coming. _

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on tumblr, at [songstressfox](http://songstressfox.tumblr.com)!


End file.
